


Perfect Prefect Padma

by citrina



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Battle of Hogwarts, Canon Era, Dumbledore's Army, F/M, Harry Potter’s year, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Fifth Year, Hogwarts First Year, Hogwarts Fourth Year, Hogwarts Second Year, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Hogwarts Third Year, Ravenclaw, Slow Burn, Yule Ball, friends - Freeform, like 7 years slow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-04-18 19:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14219889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrina/pseuds/citrina
Summary: Padma knows she's a good Ravenclaw.   It fits her personality; she is not deceitful like a Slytherin, or compassionate like a Hufflepuff, or daring like a Gryffindor.  She is quiet and proud and clever.  She is a Ravenclaw.  She got what she expected.  So why didn’t it feel right?





	1. The Sorting

Padma Patil stands in line, just like every other first year attending Hogwarts. She stands in line quietly, patiently, calmly. Unlike most of the other kids waiting, she isn’t nervous. She knows she’ll get sorted into Ravenclaw. It fits her personality; she is not deceitful like a Slytherin, or compassionate like a Hufflepuff, or daring like a Gryffindor. She is quiet and proud and clever. She is a Ravenclaw.

Her sister stands next to her, fidgeting with her silky black hair and tapping one foot impatiently. Parvati will not go to Ravenclaw. She is too headstrong and wild. She will fit into Gryffindor nicely, Padma thinks, as she turns her attention back to the sorting of “Finch-Fletchley, Justin!”

She remembers what her mother told her before they boarded the train that morning. “You are smart, Padma, but you must also be kind. Cleverness is not all that makes a good person. You won’t find friends if you don’t talk to other kids.” Padma supposes this makes sense, but sometimes she forgets this particular rule, especially when her sister’s friends made particularly mean and uncreative jokes at her expense and Vati barely told them off. They were not clever, and they were not nice, and to an eleven-year-old’s mind, this meant that the cruel were always stupid. 

The girl in front of her has a face like someone has punched her nose, and Padma wonders vaguely if that had happened or if it was natural. Probably natural, she decides, as “Goldstein, Anthony” is sorted into Ravenclaw. She looks up in mild interest, since anyone in her future house might be worthy of being her best friend. Anthony Goldstein is smallish and curly-haired and does not look much like best-friend material. She watches him scurry to the clapping Ravenclaw table and sit next to the other Ravenclaw first years who have already been sorted. Names continue being called, one highlight being Neville Longbottom the just-crowned Gryffindor, who forgets to take the Sorting Hat off his head and has to jog back and hand it off to the next student.

Soon enough the girl in front of her is sorted (her name is Pansy Parkinson and she is a Slytherin), and Padma’s name is called. She walks in careful steps up to the wooden stool and sits down. Vati gives her a little thumbs-up and a grin before the Sorting Hat is dropped onto Padma’s head and her vision is engulfed in darkness.

“A girl set in your ways, are you? Interesting… interesting… you don’t think you and your sister are alike at all?” the Sorting Hat asks. Padma almost nods the affirmative before remembering that the hat couldn’t really see her, so she thinks Yes very deliberately and firmly. Or should it be no? Double negatives shouldn’t really be answered in a yes-or-no form, Padma feels, and is about to tell the hat this before it interrupts her train of thought.

“An inquisitive mind. I think you will fit in very well in RAVENCLAW!” The hat yells the last word out loud, and McGonagall grabs the hat off Padma’s head. She gets up off the stool and walks over to the Ravenclaw table. She sits down next to a pretty blonde girl wearing a shiny badge. Anthony Goldstein, the boy who had been sorted earlier, whispers something to an older boy and they both laugh. Padma turns away from them primly to watch Parvati get sorted. It takes her sister only about five seconds to get sorted into Gryffindor; then Sally-Anne Perks gets sorted into Hufflepuff; and then it’s the famous Harry Potter’s turn to get sorted.

Growing up in the Wizarding World it was impossible to not know about Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. But right now he looks just like any other one of the first-years. Nervous and scruffy and skinnier than Padma would have imagined, seeing as he was a hero and all. It takes Potter nearly a minute to get sorted into Gryffindor, and he looks considerably happier once the attention is off of him. 

Padma watches the rest of the Sorting. It is relatively dull. She listens to Dumbledore’s (slightly odd) speech, and then eats her dinner of sprouts and shepherd’s pie quietly. The other first-year girls seem to already know each other- maybe they had met on the train? They ignore Padma. After dinner she follows the prefect girl she was sitting next to, Penelope, up to Ravenclaw Tower. The riddle-password seems awfully insecure to Padma, but she doesn’t say anything. The other girls in her dormitory introduce themselves, but she doesn’t really listen to them as she changes into her pajamas and brushes out her long hair. Looking back on it, Padma remembers only two things clearly; her sister’s smile as the Sorting Hat slipped over her head, and Anthony Goldstein whispering something to his friend and their boyish laughter. Everything else seems like an insignificant blur. 

She got what she expected. So why didn’t it feel right?


	2. Parvati

It is the second day of classes when Padma sees Parvati again. The first-year Ravenclaws and Gryffindors share only two classes, Charms and History of Magic, and they don’t have History of Magic until Thursday. They sit next to each other in Charms. Padma is grateful that they can still be friends, can still be sisters, even in different houses. Vati’s new friend, Lavender Brown, gives Padma an odd look before sitting on Parvati’s other side.

It is a fascinating lesson, and Padma tries to take as many notes as possible. She notices that Parvati and Lavender don’t take any at all, and are in fact passing notes under the desk. But Padma craves this information- the knowledge, the understanding of the world she lives in. How could her sister be so passive? How could she sit here, not wondering about how magic worked?

Padma supposes this is why she is in Ravenclaw. This insatiable thirst for knowledge.

After the lesson, they file out of the classroom. Padma follows Parvati and Lavender as they step into the hallway. The other Ravenclaw girls, who are named Mandy, Sue, and Lisa, are behind her. Padma has still barely spoken to them, and honestly has a bit of trouble telling Mandy and Lisa apart.

They are reaching the stairs to the dungeons, where Potions classes are held. Padma has Potions next, and she has heard that Professor Snape is not the friendliest teacher at Hogwarts. She wants to make a good impression by getting there early, so she turns to go down.

“Bye,” she says to Parvati and Lavender. They are chatting about some boy in their House, but when Padma talks they immediately stop. Parvati nods awkwardly and Lavender blinks stupidly. Neither say anything. Padma stops walking and watches as her sister links arms with Lavender Brown and walks off.

She feels her heart sink a little bit. She and Parvati used to link arms as kids; Parvati had said a year or two ago that she felt it was “too babyish.” So why wasn’t it too babyish now?

Turning around, she lifts her chin and walks with her back straight and proud. Her sister has replaced her, and she will not show her disappointment, no matter how much it hurts.

“Hey,” says a voice on her left. Parma barely notices it, her thoughts clouded with annoyance at her sister’s stupid friend who Parvati liked more and probably would spend more time with than Padma ever did-

“Hey!” says the voice again, only louder. Padma freezes and turns around. The speaker is a short boy with curly hair and a Ravenclaw tie. Anthony Goldstein, her brain supplies. The boy who laughed at her during the Sorting.

“What do you want, Goldstein?” She tries to sound cool and impassive, but her voice shakes a little. Dammit, she’s going to look like one of those girls who giggles and whispers about boys. Overcompensating for her wobbly voice, she glares at him instead.

Anthony looks at her for a moment, and then says, “What’s got you so hot and bothered?”

Padma blinks and stops glaring. Her mother’s voice comes back to her. Parvati’s and Lavender’s linked arms- Goldstein’s whispers during the Sorting- it is too much to handle. She squeezes her eyes shut and hurries to the Potions classroom, not looking back at Anthony Goldstein or his surprised expression.

♠♠♠

The Potions class is slightly terrifying, with Professor Snape seeming to sweep around the room like a large bat. Padma sits with one of the girls in her dorm (maybe Lisa but probably Mandy) and pays her best attention, but she’s already anxious for what Potions will bring. It seemed, when she’d skimmed the textbook the night before, that it was simply following instructions. Now she’s not so sure.

It is not until after dinner that she feels the real weight of her loneliness settle in. She isn’t alone- but she is lonely. The other students in her house and year have already seemed to made all their friends, less than a week in. She can’t get stupid Lavender’s face out of her mind, and even though she knows Lavender has done nothing wrong, she still feels like someone has snatched Parvati straight out from under her nose. Having a twin sister was supposed to be like having a built-in best friend, but it felt more like just having someone who people confused you with. She’d already been called Parvati three times by three different students. If professors didn’t call everybody by their last names, they’d probably get mixed up even more.

Padma goes up to her dorm before the other girls and gets ready for bed early. Then she starts on her first Potions essay, losing herself in the simple world of parchment and ink. Even if Hogwarts isn’t what she thought it would be, the schoolwork certainly is. The material is everything she wished for and more, but it is a slight struggle over her parents’ homeschooling methods. She’s sure Parvati is having a hard time of it.

And she’s back to thinking about Parvati. Maybe she should go to bed.


	3. Halloween

It is Halloween and Padma hates Halloween. Hates the dramatic decorations, hates Peeves popping up randomly to frighten people, hates that Parvati convinced her to wear a costume. It’s nothing much, just a pair of drawn-on whiskers and cat ears charmed to move, but she still feels foolish. Some older students have put together costumes of various levels of success, but most of the kids in her year aren’t dressed up. Padma counts four, not including herself. 

It is mortifying that she even lets herself be brought down this low. But at this point she’s desperate to hold onto any connection with her sister. One of their traditions is to wear matching costumes on Halloween, and today Parvati is wearing dog ears and drew a nose with face-painting ink. Lavender Brown, to Padma’s horror, is wearing dog ears and a tail to match Parvati. 

Parvati takes off her costume for Charms class, and Padma takes that as her cue to do that as well. They attempt their first proper charm in class, and it takes all of Padma’s will not to burst from anticipation. The only real magic they’ve done is some Transfiguration, and that was pretty useless and simple. But a levitation charm has actual purpose!

Unfortunately, it proves irritatingly difficult. Hermione Granger is first to get it right, and after that Padma is determined to succeed, if only to prove to herself that she will get the charm second if she can’t get it first. Padma swishes-and-flicks what feels like a hundred times, but her feather stays firmly on the table. At least it doesn’t explode like one of the Gryffindors’ did, if that’s any consolation.

Afterward she wants to talk to Hermione so she can ask how she did it (and maybe make a friend, Hermione seems like a decent sort), but she’s nowhere to be found by the time Padma is packed up. Padma hurries to the door, hoping to catch her in the corridor, but all the students are there at once and it’s impossible to push through the crowd of extremely tall fifth-years blocking her path. 

“Out’a the way, firstie,” one fifth-year grunts. He is wide-shouldered and has bad acne across his snaggle-toothed face. Padma stumbles back and accidentally slams into someone exiting the Charms classroom. Turning around, she realizes that it’s Anthony Goldstein. 

“Sorry,” she mutters, turning away from him. 

“It’s okay,” he says quietly. He always seems to be popping up, although it’s not such a surprise considering how small their year is. Padma scoots away from him, hoping for a subtle escape. Some of the other boys in their Charms class were laughing and joking around as they leave, but Anthony’s all alone. 

In fact, they’re both alone. Padma realizes that, besides the first day where he laughed at her with the other boys, she’s never seen him talk to anyone else. He might be just as lonely as she is. 

“Hey,” she says suddenly in a rare moment of spontaneity. “Do you want to sit with me at the feast tonight?”

“That would be great,” Anthony answers with a huge grin, and they walk down the corridor together.

♠♠♠

Before the chaos that follows the feast, Padma learns a few things about Anthony. One is that he’s Jewish, and celebrates Hanukkah, not Christmas. He has two older brothers, both at Hogwarts and in Ravenclaw like him. He thinks the other boys in his dorm, Michael, Terry, and Stephen, don’t like him very much, because on the first day Michael made fun of him and the others laughed. Padma tells him that the girls in her dorm don’t seem to like her either.

After they’re sent back to the Common Room, Padma is approached by Terry Boot, a boy in her year she’s only ever had one conversation with (it involved a Transfiguration incident Padma really wants to forget). He marches up to her spot on the cozy blue armchair she is curled up in, working on the finishing touches of her Charms essay. 

“How’d you get him to talk to you?” Terry asks without introduction. She stares up at him for a second, dripping a dot of ink on the chair. She swipes away the ink with one hand, leaving a dark smudge on her palm.

“Get who to talk to me?” she asks. 

“Anthony Goldstein! He barely looks at us most days, he’s so shy! And then all of a sudden he’s talking to you? How’d you do it?” Terry points an accusatory finger at her.

“I don’t know what you’re implying about me, but I just invited Anthony to sit with me at the feast tonight, that’s all,” Padma responds. Anthony had mentioned not being friends with the other boys, but she’d assumed he meant that he just didn’t know them very well yet. Not that he hadn’t spoken to them at all. He hadn’t seemed that shy to her, either, just a little awkward and worried about fitting in, just like every other kid at Hogwarts.

“We’ve tried that,” Terry groans. “It never works.”

 

“What do you mean, you’ve tried that?”

“Whenever we go, ‘hey Anthony, let’s go down for breakfast’ or ‘hey Anthony, want to grab lunch right now?’ he totally clams up, even if we’re all going in a group. And you just - you just invite him and he goes?” Terry says incredulously. Then he huffs and crosses his arms. “I guess he thinks you’re better company than us.”

“Wha- no! He said he thinks you guys don’t like him, or something,” Padma says hurriedly. “That’s why he won’t talk to you, probably.”

“What, because of Michael being stupid that first day? That was like, a whole two months ago!” 

“My mum says that first impressions always count double,” Padma says. “If he never apologized, Michael probably ended up giving a really bad impression to Anthony.”

“Yeah, Michael’s really not the type to apologize,” Terry says. “He kind of assumes that he doesn’t need to say sorry for anything unless the other person says it first.”

“Well, maybe you and Michael should have a chat with him then. Really, I think he’d appreciate it,” Padma tells him. Then she stand up, grabbing her parchment, inkpot, quill, and textbook. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bed.”


	4. Friends

The next morning Anthony tells her that the boys in his room are now talking to him, and he is talking to them, and the first-year boys’ Ravenclaw dormitory is now a warm and inviting place. Padma joins him and his new friends down at breakfast.

“I’m Michael Corner. You’re Parvati Patil, right?” says one boy, holding out one hand and stuffing his face with toast with the other. 

“I know,” she says. “And I’m Padma. Not Parvati.”

“Oh,” he says stupidly through his full mouth. Terry gives him a little side-eye, but Padma can see a little grin forming on his lips. She shakes his hand and sits down next to Anthony.

Michael is a lot to take in: chubby, rosy cheeks; huge dark eyes framed with long lashes most girls would kill for; a crooked nose; a high, mile-a-minute voice that never seems to stop, even if half of what he says is inane. He never studies or works hard, yet always gets stellar grades. He’s a dreamer, spending hours doodling instead of doing homework. Every morning he comes down for breakfast with a detailed description of last night’s dream. His head is always in the clouds. He irritates her to no end. Padma, oddly enough, doesn’t really mind being irritated.

Terry cracks inappropriate but hilarious jokes and is fantastic at making her laugh. He wears too-big glasses that slip down his nose and has chocolate-brown hair that he forgets to comb. His tie is knotted all wrong and his robes are secondhand and crooked, even if Padma pretends not to notice. He, like Michael, never seems to stop talking, for better or for worse. He’s bullheaded and overly outgoing, somehow already friends with half their year. But he asks real questions, goes on long tangents involving big numbers, and includes Padma’s opinion on every conversation. It’s invigorating to converse with another like her. Inquisitive, curious, and fascinated with the world around them. This, Padma thinks, is what being a Ravenclaw should be.

And then Anthony. He’s pensive and serious compared to Terry, but every bit as clever. Every bit as intuitive. He observes the world around him and makes quick, quiet judgement. He’s shy and awkward, sometimes, but once he’s more comfortable with her, Terry, and Michael, he opens up. He loves reading Muggle novels, being half-blood. He likes his tea with two sugars and no milk. He can tell stories like no one else, becoming vibrant and bright, weaving details like velvet when most could only make dull muslin. He loves Potions, even if Professor Snape frightens him. He has curly blond hair that bounces around when he walks. He likes Quidditch and Sugar Quills and dogs. He has a dry, witty sense of humor that matches Padma’s own.

Suddenly, Padma finds herself with three friends. It’s better than she ever dreamed.

♠♠♠

Parvati asks her one day, in February, why she is friends with a bunch of boys, as if it’s some sort of crime. It feels like it, when her sister looks at her like she is an animal in a zoo enclosure. Like she is odd.

“I just like them, okay?” Padma tells her, to get her off her back. She feels slightly ashamed, after that conversation, to speak to the boys afterwards. She doesn’t tell them about Parvati’s offhand comment that “at the very least you could’ve picked cute ones”. As if it matters what they look like. They’re good friends, especially Anthony, who studies Potions with her and helps her with flying, which is not her strong suit. 

But Parvati’s question sticks in her mind, irritatingly enough. She knows Mandy, Sue, and Lisa are a trio of girls, as are Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Bulstrode, and Daphne Greengrass. Parvati and Lavender are best friends, of course. So are Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan, and Hannah Abbott and Susan Bones. Malfoy’s little trio barely counts as friendship, in Padma’s opinion, since Crabbe and Goyle probably just do Malfoy’s bidding to stay on his good side. Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger are an anomaly, seeing as Hermione became friends with them suddenly and without explanation after Halloween. For the most part friendships stick to one gender, as well as one house. It’s only natural, of course, for people to gravitate towards others similar to them. Padma just wishes Parvati wouldn’t judge her for it.

It really shouldn’t bother her. But suddenly all she can see in the corridors are huddled groups of girls, giggling over articles in Witch Weekly, and gangs of older boys racing each other to the Quidditch pitch to play a game of pick-up. Besides couples, most friendships are with people of the same gender. 

“Does it bother you that I’m a girl?” Padma asks Terry one day as they watch Michael demolish Anthony in Wizard’s Chess. Anthony only has two pawns, one bishop, and his king left, and is in check.

“What? Why would it bother us?” Terry says back.

“Next she’s gonna ask if it bothers us that she’s taller than Anthony,” Michael jokes, as one of his knights whacks the head off of Anthony’s remaining bishop. Anthony winces as the pieces skitter across the chessboard. His king bows in checkmate and Michael’s marches up to it, smashing it into the board. 

“As a matter of fact, it bothers me very much that you’re taller than me,” Anthony says grumpily, and they laugh. Their honesty rests Padma’s fears, and she pushes Parvati’s comments to the back of her mind.


	5. First Year

After exams, Padma, Anthony, Terry, and Michael are sitting on a balcony of Ravenclaw tower, eating candy that Padma’s parents sent her for pre-exam stress. She hadn’t eaten most of it herself, if only because she was so caught up in her first year exams that she totally forgot. Anthony, who has a love for all things sugary, has already eaten two Sugar Quills and a Fizzing Whizbee; now they are all sharing a box of Bertie Bott’s and guessing flavors.

Anthony chews thoughtfully. “Some sort of meat? Chicken, maybe,” he says after popping a bean in his mouth. Padma takes a bite of a green one, then recoils in surprise.

“It’s jalepeño, gross!” She spits out the spicy bean, biting her tongue as if to get rid of the flavor. Terry laughs, taking another jellybean for himself (this one is neon yellow). 

“What, you don’t like spicy?” Michael asks, as he writes down the flavor on a piece of parchment. He’s trying to record every flavor of Bertie Bott’s beans; Padma keeps telling him it’s no use, but once Michael has an idea there’s no stopping him.

“Yuck, no,” Padma says, taking a sip of water from the bottle Anthony offers her. “And of course whenever I’m in India it’s all they’ve got, so I have to eat spicy food no matter what.” Michael nods at this; his mother is Pakistani, so he’s had his fair share of spices.

Terry sniffs his yellow jellybean before popping it in his mouth. Then he wrinkles his nose- “Highlighter,” he concludes. 

“Well, I don’t know what you expected with that color, mate,” Michael remarks, writing it down. “But I’m surprised that’s an option. Do they use Muggle flavors?”

Michael’s mother is a Muggle, so he knows much more about Muggle culture than Padma or Terry (both pureblood) and although Anthony is also half-blood, both his parents are magic. Michael introduced them to pencils and pens excitedly once, the same way he did everything. Padma thought they were ridiculous looking, but they seemed to work pretty well. 

Padma accepts a white bean from Anthony, a risk, considering that according to Michael’s calculations, white beans are usually bad flavors. She puts the bean in her mouth; it’s sweet and sticky.

“Marshmallow, thank Merlin,” she says happily. Michael records it and Anthony and Terry clap at their success. 

They finish the box, moving on to Michael’s stash of chocolate frogs. Terry shoves a whole frog in his mouth, teasing Anthony for biting off its head first.

“You’re torturing it, look,” Terry says as Anthony chews on the frog’s head, the body still wiggling in his hand. “It’s still moving.”

“It’s chocolate, it can’t feel pain,” Anthony says, biting off a leg. “And anyway, I can’t fit the whole thing in my mouth like you, you great brute.” They all laugh, and Terry eats another frog whole.

♠♠♠

The whole school is buzzing about Harry Potter fighting Professor Quirrell, rumours getting stranger every time Padma hears the story. One Hufflepuff tells her that Quirrell brought a giant man-eating iguana from Bolivia to kill Harry, but it was killed by Professor Dumbledore; another person insists that the whole thing is made up and Harry just got attacked by a rogue Devil’s Snare in the dungeons. Padma thinks both are far from the truth, not that she knows what the truth is. It doesn’t concern her, and she’d rather not know.

With Harry out, Ravenclaw crushes Gryffindor in the final Quidditch match. It seems almost unfair when Tessa Cattermole, the pretty seventh-year Ravenclaw Seeker, catches the snitch unopposed. Almost unfair, because Padma screams just as loud as every other Ravenclaw in the stands, Anthony and Terry by her sides (Michael had gone back to the castle midway through the game, bored with the “athletic nonsense”). The Ravenclaw team does a victory lap while the Gryffindor captain, Wood, sinks to the ground depressingly with his team.

Despite the huge victory, Slytherin still has a 20-point lead over Ravenclaw, so they don’t win the Quidditch cup. They won’t win the House Cup either, though according to Michael the Slytherins only won because Gryffindors are chronic rulebreakers. But there’s still a huge after-party in the Common Room, where Padma sits in the corner awkwardly and plays Gobstones with her friends. The two seventh-years on the team, the Seeker and one of the Chasers, get wildly drunk and start snogging on a sofa by the window, to many cheers from their fellow upperclassmen. 

“Shield your eyes,” Anthony laughs as they pack up the Gobstones board, ready to get to bed. They split, the boys going up the stairs to their room, while Padma goes up into hers. Later, in bed, she thinks it’s a good way to end first year, with laughter and friendship and Quidditch victory.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for dropping in on my story! Please leave kudos if you like it :)


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